The Conservative Political Action Conference, billed as the largest gathering of activists on the Right and often a Republican presidential candidate cattle call, is back in the Washington, D.C., area after a pandemic-related hiatus.
What happens at CPAC could tell us much about the state of the conservative movement and give us the earliest of glimpses into the 2024 race for the GOP White House nomination.
Here are a few things to watch for as events unfold.
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Can former President Donald Trump take advantage of having the stage largely to himself?
Most of the likely Republican presidential field is taking a pass on the proceedings in National Harbor. But Trump is the front-runner in many polls and in the top two in virtually all of them. He’s going to be there.
CPAC played an important role in Trump’s wooing of the conservative movement. He had little history on the Right outside of occasional donations and sometimes being a registered Republican. His short-lived campaign for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination against conservative stalwart Pat Buchanan saw him take liberal positions on matters such as abortion.
Trump’s first speech at CPAC in 2011 was a coming out party of sorts four years before anyone took him seriously as a Republican presidential hopeful and five years before he dispatched 16 more established GOP politicos en route to the nomination. By 2017, wags called the event “TPAC,” in reference to Trump.
“And you finally have a president now. Finally,” he told the crowd that year. “Took you a long time.”
Almost 17 years after Ronald Reagan was elected president, that claim could be second-guessed. But there is no question that Trump’s position among conservatives will be closely scrutinized, judged in part by how he is received at the confab.
Trump doesn’t have Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) or even former Vice President Mike Pence competing for the spotlight. Will he make the most of the opportunity?
Can Nikki Haley break out?
The second declared Republican presidential candidate, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump-appointed ambassador to the United Nations, faces the same question. Haley will get a closer look from a conservative crowd without unannounced rivals such as DeSantis. She has delivered a number of well-received speeches, including her 2024 campaign launch in Charleston and her remarks at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Haley, 51, is making the case for a generational change in leadership. She is also overtly arguing her status as a woman of color rebuts woke critiques of America while more quietly suggesting it will help GOP electoral prospects.
But Haley is also running a distant fourth in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with a recent national Fox News poll showing her tied with the still-unannounced Pence at 7%. She more than Trump needs to be able to stand out from the pack.
The third announced prominent candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, is also speaking.
Who will win the CPAC straw poll?
No, this unscientific attendee presidential preference survey doesn’t always predict the Republican nominee. Ron Paul won in 2010, ending three straight victories by Mitt Romney. But it is a decent test of grassroots enthusiasm and basic organizational competence — can your campaign at least bus College Republicans to a large hotel? — and generally garners as much media coverage as any of the speeches.
Romney’s straw poll wins were an early sign he would be able to win over enough conservatives to make it possible for him eventually to win the Republican nomination in 2012, even if a man dressed in a dolphin costume to illustrate the former Massachusetts governor’s policy flip-flops was chasing him around. Paul’s win came the same year his son Rand defeated a sitting statewide officeholder in a primary during his first political campaign on his way to winning a Senate seat.
What will be the big controversy this year?
There have been years when those who were not allowed to participate in CPAC — consider the controversies over the gay conservative group GOProud — got as much attention as most of the people there. Other years, the controversies have involved who showed up. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose refusal to concede last year’s election has been likened to Trump’s ill-fated “stop the steal” gambit, is on the agenda.
Who or what will grab the headlines in 2023?
Does the red wave receding dampen enthusiasm?
Republicans won back the House, and the Democrats’ hold on the Senate is shakier than it initially seemed. But overall, the midterm elections were a major disappointment for Republicans, who were banking on a big rebuke to President Joe Biden. One of the candidates who lost a close race, though she has not conceded, will have a prime speaking slot. Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is addressing CPAC’s Reagan dinner.
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Will these setbacks cast a pall over CPAC? Or does it just make the conservative activists hungrier for a win next year?
The four-day conference will run through March 4.
